Summary: Mr X complained the Council failed to provide his parents’ care and support plans, initially said the care costs would be minimal then charged more than £4000, and had poor communication when he raised concerns. He said this caused huge stress and worry to him and his parents, and he lost the opportunity of arranging cheaper and more reliable private care. We find the Council at fault for failing to provide the care and support plans, delays in completing the financial assessments, and for some of its communication, which caused distress and uncertainty. The Council has agreed to apologise and make a symbolic payment to remedy the injustice.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains about the Council’s handling of his parents’, Mr and Mrs Y’s, financial contributions to their adult social care costs. In particular he complains the Council:
1. Failed to provide his parents’ care and support plans and personal budgets.
2. Initially told him and his parents that the care costs would be minimal and then charged more than £4,000.
3. Had poor communication.
2. Mr X said the Council’s actions caused his parents huge stress and worry, meant they lost the opportunity of arranging private care which would have been more reliable and cheaper, and had a negative impact on his life and work as he had to drop everything to care for his parents and their finances.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
4. We may investigate a complaint on behalf of someone who has died or who cannot authorise someone to act for them. The complaint may be made by:

• their personal representative (if they have one), or
• someone we consider to be suitable.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 26A(2) and 34C(2), as amended)

5. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council provider has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
6. If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(1), as amended)

Back to top

What I have and have not investigated

7. I have investigated how the Council handled the care charges from September 2023 until April 2025 when Mr X complained to us.
8. Matters that occurred before April 2024 are late because it took Mr X more than 12 months to complain about them. However, evidence shows Mr X raised concerns from September 2023 and did not let the matter rest. The Council did not discover and notify Mr X of important information relevant to his complaint until December 2024. I have decided these are good reasons why Mr X did not complain to us about the care charges sooner, and have decided to exercise my discretion to investigate that element of Mr X’s complaint.
9. I have not investigated concerns Mr X raised about how the Council arranged for Mr Y’s care package to be implemented in September 2023. This element is late and the Council addressed it in a letter dated September 2023. I have decided there is not a good reason why Mr X did not complain about this particular matter sooner and I therefore cannot investigate it.

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

10. I considered evidence provided by Mr X and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
11. Mr X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments before making a final decision.

Back to top

What I found

Law and guidance

Duty to arrange care and support

12. A council has a duty to arrange care and support for those with eligible needs, and a power to meet both eligible and non-eligible needs in places other than care homes. A council can choose to charge for non-residential care following a person’s needs assessment. Where it decides to charge, the council must follow the Care and Support (Charging and Assessment of Resources) Regulations 2014 and have regard to the Care Act statutory guidance. (Care Act 2014, section 14 and 17)

Care and Support Plans

13. The Care Act 2014 gives councils a legal responsibility to provide a care and support plan (or a support plan for a carer). The care and support plan should consider what needs the person has, what they want to achieve, what they can do by themselves or with existing support and what care and support may be available in the local area. When preparing a care and support plan the council must involve any carer the adult has. The support plan must include a personal budget, which is the money the council has worked out it will cost to arrange the necessary care and support for that person.

Personal Budgets and Direct Payments

14. Everyone whose needs the council meets must receive a personal budget as part of the care and support plan. The personal budget gives the person clear information about the money allocated to meet the needs identified in the assessment and recorded in the plan. The council should share an indicative amount with the person, and anybody else involved, at the start of care and support planning. It should confirm the final amount of the personal budget through this process. The detail of how the person will use their personal budget will be in the care and support plan. The personal budget must always be enough to meet the person’s care and support needs.
15. There are three main ways a personal budget can be administered:

• as a managed account held by the council with support provided in line with the person’s wishes;
• as a managed account held by a third party (often called an individual service fund or ISF) with support provided in line with the person’s wishes; or
• as a direct payment.
  (Care and Support Statutory Guidance 2014)

Financial Assessments

16. Where a council has decided to charge for care, it must carry out a financial assessment to decide what a person can afford to pay. It must then give the person a written record of the completed assessment. Councils have no power to assess couples according to their joint financial resources. A council must treat each person individually. A council must not charge more than the cost it incurs to meet a person’s assessed eligible needs.
17. Councils can take disability-related benefit into account when calculating how much someone should pay towards the cost of their care. When doing so, a council should make an assessment to allow the person to keep enough benefit to pay for necessary disability-related expenditure (DRE) to meet any needs it is not meeting.

What happened

18. This is a summary of key events. It is not a chronology of everything that happened.
19. In September 2023 the Council assessed Mr and Mrs Y’s care and support needs. Mr X was involved in the assessment. It identified eligible care and support needs for both. The Council decided the needs should be met with home visits by carers. It set individual personal budgets. It decided the care should be paid for using direct payments. It explained the direct payment system, that used a cash budget and prepaid cards, to Mr X.
20. The Council completed care and support plans for Mr and Mrs Y. The Council subsequently found no evidence it sent the care and support plans to them, or to Mr X.
21. The Council did send “eligibility letters” to Mr and Mrs Y in October. It told them it had identified eligible care and support needs. It did not explain how the needs would be met or include their personal budgets. The letters said the Council estimated Mr and Mrs Y would have to pay £449.53 and £202.00 per week for their care. It said they would be invoiced for the care they had to pay for following completion of individual financial assessments.
22. Carers from a care provider started visiting Mr and Mrs Y in October. The Council issued prepaid cards for Mr X to pay for the care.
23. The Council also sent financial assessment forms to Mr X to complete. The forms included a section for him to record DRE. Mr X sent the completed forms back to the Council at the beginning of November.
24. The Council completed the financial assessments for Mr and Mrs Y and notified them by letter about three months later in January and February 2024 respectively.
25. It said Mr Y had to contribute between approximately £310 and £380 per week for his care, and Mrs Y had to contribute approximately £40 per week. It explained the contributions applied to the care they had received since October. It asked them to ensure they pay the amounts into their cash budget.
26. In February Mr X stopped the care. He made his own arrangements for Mr and Mrs Y’s care.
27. Mr X raised concerns with the Council about his parents’ financial contributions. The Council commenced a financial review of the cash budget account and care costs. It requested Mr X provide paperwork regarding the care he had paid for using the prepaid cards.
28. Mr X contacted the Council and asked for a meeting to discuss his concerns about the care costs. The Council and Mr X contacted one another throughout April and May to try to arrange a time to meet. They were unable to find a mutually convenient time.
29. Mr X raised a formal complaint with the Council in October. He detailed his concerns about the way the Council managed the care budgets for Mr and Mrs Y, and its failure to explain things to him.
30. Later in October the Council wrote to Mr X. It had completed the financial review of Mr and Mrs Y’s cash budget and provided the outcome. It explained there was £4,118.15 outstanding that it would invoice Mr X for.
31. The Council responded to Mr X’s complaint in December. It sent an investigation report to Mr X. It identified it was at fault for some parts of his complaint, but not others. I have referred to the relevant parts in the analysis section below.
32. Mr X complained to the Ombudsman in April 2025. Mr and Mrs Y have since sadly died.

Analysis

33. I address each part of Mr X’s complaint in turn below.

Complaint the Council failed to provide his parents’ care and support plans and personal budgets.

34. In its complaint response the Council said it found no evidence it had sent the care and support plans, and the personal budgets, to Mr and Mrs Y when they were completed in September 2023.
35. When considering complaints we make findings based on the balance of probabilities. This means that we look at the available relevant evidence and decide what was more likely to have happened. I have considered the evidence and find, on the balance of probabilities, the Council did not send the care and support plans and personal budgets. This meant Mr X and Mr and Mrs Y did not receive clear information about the money allocated to meet their care needs. They did not know what their personal budgets were, nor what type of care they could be used to pay for. This was fault which caused injustice in the form of distress and uncertainty.
36. The Council’s complaint response also identified there was a large backlog that led to delays in completing the financial assessments. It had also failed to properly consider the DRE. It meant Mr X and Mr and Mrs Y did not receive clear information about their financial contributions to the care. This was fault which caused injustice in the form of distress and uncertainty.
37. I recommend the Council apologise to Mr X and make a symbolic payment to acknowledge the injustice.

Complaint the Council initially told Mr X and his parents that the care costs would be minimal and then charged more than £4,000.

38. I have considered the Council’s case notes of conversations with Mr X and his parents in 2023 and the record of the assessments in the care and support plans. I have seen no evidence the Council said Mr and Mrs Y’s financial contribution would be minimal.
39. I also note the Council sent the eligibility letters to Mr and Mrs Y at the beginning of October 2023. This is evidence the Council informed them it estimated they would have to contribute £449.53 and £202.00 per week respectively for their care.
40. Based on this evidence, I do not find the Council at fault for this part of Mr X’s complaint.

Complaint the Council had poor communication.

41. Mr X complained that the Council made contact to request and provide information sometimes by phone, sometimes in writing to his parents at their address, sometimes in writing to his address and sometimes by email to him. He complained this made it difficult to keep track of the information from the Council. He said it caused his parents distress when they did not understand why the Council was demanding money from them.
42. The Council said it sent letters to Mr and Mrs Y in 2023 before Mr X had signed a document that confirmed he was acting on their behalf. For this reason I do not find fault for this contact.
43. The evidence also shows the Council contacted Mr X by different methods. This was for reasons including providing hardcopies of financial assessment forms, chasing the financial assessment forms, and trying to arrange the meeting that he had requested. I find the Council’s general approach to contacting Mr X was suitable in the circumstances. For this reason I do not find fault with the Council’s decision to use different methods of contact to Mr X.
44. I also find the Council made suitable efforts to try to arrange a meeting with Mr X following his request. A mutually convenient date for a meeting was not found, however I find that was primarily due to factors the Council could not control. For those reasons I do not find the Council at fault for not having a meeting with Mr X.
45. However, the Council wrote to Mr and Mrs Y, not Mr X, to notify them of the outcome of the financial assessments in January and February 2024. Mr X said it also sent his parents invoices and demands for payment.
46. The Council said it does not automatically send all financial information to people managing cash budgets on behalf of someone else, but confirmed Mr X was the nominated invoicee for Mrs Y at the time. For those reasons I find the Council at fault for the way it communicated with Mr and Mrs Y when it had completed the financial assessments.
47. I accept Mr X’s account that the correspondence caused him and his parents’ distress. I therefore find the fault caused injustice.
48. I recommend the Council apologise and make a symbolic payment to remedy the injustice.

Complaint the Council’s faults caused Mr and Mrs Y to pay more for care.

49. I have considered whether the Council’s faults caused Mr and Mrs Y to pay more than they otherwise would have.
50. Mr X said the Council caused them to pay more because it failed to tell him his parents would have to contribute to their care.
51. I find Mr X had an opportunity to arrange private care when the Council wrote to Mr and Mrs Y in October 2023 and told them the estimated amounts they would have to contribute. The actual amounts they had to contribute were lower than the initial estimates. For this reason I do not find any fault of the Council caused Mr X to miss an opportunity to explore cheaper care.
52. Mr X also said the Council caused higher costs because he used the prepaid card to pay for DRE. He explained he thought the financial assessment form was the care and support plan. He therefore thought the DRE he had listed in the financial assessment form was justifiable spend.
53. I have seen no evidence the Council caused Mr X to think it would pay for the DRE on the financial assessment form. For this reason I do not find any fault of the Council caused Mr X to inadvertently spend money on DRE.

Recommendations

54. Mr and Mrs Y have died in the period since Mr X complained to us. Our Guidance on Remedies states we will not normally recommend a symbolic remedy in the same way as we might for someone who is still living. This is because these are remedies for injustice to that person and as such cannot have that effect if they have died.
55. In this case I have found the Council’s faults caused Mr X significant personal injustice because he was managing his parents’ care and was directly affected by its actions. I have considered our Guidance on Remedies and recommend the Council apologise and pay Mr X £250 for the distress and uncertainty caused by its failure to send the care and support plans, delay and errors in conducting the financial assessments, and for the communication fault.
56. I note the Council’s investigation report in its complaint response of December 2024 listed recommendations and actions it would carry out in response to the faults it identified. These include the recalculation of the financial assessments to take account of the DRE, a review of the final audit of the amount owed, officer training and improved procedures and quality assurance checks. In light of these actions I make no further recommendations.

Back to top

Action

57. Within four weeks of the date of this final decision the Council will:
1. Apologise to Mr X. We publish guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The organisation should consider this guidance in making the apology I have recommended in my findings.
2. Make a symbolic payment of £250 to Mr X to acknowledge the injustice.
58. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

Back to top

Decision

59. I find fault for the Council’s actions linked to the care and support plans, financial assessments and communication, as explained in the Analysis section, which caused injustice. I therefore uphold those elements of Mr X’s complaint. The Council has agreed actions to remedy the injustice.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman